If we draw a diagram of the marketing legal services universe we would see three sectors. The first sector is comprised of lawyers who do very little marketing or no marketing. This includes the ones who proclaim that they are professionals, not sales people, and “shouldn’t have to” do any marketing.
Of course every lawyer does marketing, whether they know it or not. Remember, marketing includes all of the little things we do to make our client’s experience with us a net positive. But the lawyers in this sector don’t do much more to build their practice.
The next sector, the smallest of the three, are those attorneys who understand the importance of marketing and who do it big. They study marketing, they have staff, they have a budget, and they are put a lot of energy into growing their practice.
The third sector, and the largest, is where everyone else resides.
If you’re in the first sector, be warned. You’re playing with fire. A practice that isn’t growing is dying, and if you’re not making a conscious effort to market your services, it is only a matter of time before you’re in trouble.
If you’re in the second sector, congratulations. The rest of us admire you. But that doesn’t mean we all want to do what you do. We know that marketing is vital to our success, and we do it, but most of us don’t do it with the same intensity you do.
Are you surprised that I include myself in this sector? When I was practicing, I got good at marketing because I wanted to eat and pay my bills, not because I loved marketing or was driven to build the biggest practice in town. I had other things I wanted to do in my life outside of my legal career, and I did them.
You can build a successful career without being “all in” with respect to marketing. In fact, if you are passionate about what you do as a lawyer and you’re good at your work, you don’t have to do a lot of marketing.
But you have to do some.
Find a few things you enjoy doing and have time to do, and do them. Don’t worry about everything else.
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